Locked Up
by Tainted Kattitina
Summary: Sora writes about one of the hardest times of his life. Based on fact. No pairings. Rated for the age group I am aiming for.


Locked Up

Disclaimer: I do not own the characters

'I am not a writer,' Sora's hands paused on the keys, debating what to type next, 'but every non-writer has a story they have to share one day. I think, that finally I can share my story, or more specifically his story. It doesn't have happy endings, or perfect closings, it doesn't even have a clear beginning. Why? Because this is a story about life, and how it changed.

'The clearest beginning is when we moved to Destiny Island, me, my brothers Cloud and Roxas, and our mom. Dad would be coming later, being in the military yet wanting us to move first so we didn't have to move in the school year. Destiny Island High School numbers about 300 students, about 200 for the middle school right next door. It is small compared to Radiant Garden High School which numbered about 300 students per a grade. They said it was a very accepting area.

'We had moved into the two bedroom apartment in August, and were waiting for a house to be built. Cloud was a senior, Roxas a freshman, and I was going into the seventh grade. August and September weren't too bad, but when October rolled around we were getting kind of cramped. Tensions started to flare, and that's why I didn't notice. Mother says I am a lot like Dad, early to bed and early to rise, a real morning person, and a lot of changes were most noticeable in the mornings.

'Roxas was, changing. Sleeping more but refreshed less, losing his mind of little things. Always knocking his fingers on the walls. He was lacking any energy but nervous energy. Mom noticed something else, something darker. That discovery changed my world.'

Sora paused, and moved the mouse over the exit button. It wasn't his story to tell, just his side, why should he tell it. Sighing, Sora resumed typing.

'One day, Roxas was taken to see someone, and when he and Mom got home, they sat me down to talk. It was the hardest talk of my life. "Sora, honey," my mom had said, "Roxas need to go stay at a psychiatrics' hospital for a bit." I was shocked, why did perfect, ( and flawed), Roxas have to go to the hospital.

'It turns out that Roxas was depressed, and cutting. He needed to go to a hospital so that when the medication started kicking in, he wouldn't get the energy to kill himself before the medication helped him see that things weren't so bad. I guess the move, away from all his old friends, hit him pretty hard and he didn't know how to fit in. Everyone on the island lived there their entire life, and getting into a group was hard. He used to be the center of attention in a small group of about 12, but it was perfect for him.

'I helped him pack his stuff. Blankets and books, and I cried. My brother, my hero, and he was going to be sent to the hospital, away from me. Who would I watch movies with and tease, and bother? The thought of him leaving forever, however, out weight my selfishness in wanting him to stay with me. I hated packing up his things, though I snuck something in his pack so he would remember me in the hospital.

'On the drive to the hospital, we had to take a ferry, so we grabbed some animal crackers and fed the seagulls. The day was nice, mockingly so. I hated it, just like I hated the hospital. Unlike the movies, the lobby was painted a sickly color of yellow, and I hear that other parts of the hospital were painted too. We stayed for an hour, to get him settled, to mock the rule book and pretend that everything was alright. It wasn't, and I hated leaving, like I was abandoning Roxas to this horrible place with stupid rules and bad paint.

'I visited several times, bringing him his much needed caffeine fix and books. He was out for the holidays, but in the end that didn't matter, he was back in after the new years. Again, I had to return him to bad hospital food and silly rules, and it broke me. Why did he have to go to a place where he couldn't get a good night's sleep with all the flashlights? But he did, and I was there when he walked back to the parts of the hospital I wasn't allowed to see. In a way, it was better, because he wasn't cramped into that little two bedroom apartment with our parents, Cloud, and I.

'In the end, they gave him the drug everyone always joked about, but he was still changed. He wasn't the Roxas I had moved with, the one with the art and the stories and the desire to leave the world behind. Not the one who would read me stories and let me read his stories. My Roxas was gone, yet I still loved him. He was my brother, and even if he was changed, deep down I knew he was still there.'

Sora paused, pushing past the memories and the feelings. The tale that was not his own was almost over, and he hadn't gotten it just right. It didn't express him enough.

'It is hard, many years later, to express what happened. The tears have all been cried, and the feelings are not so strong, having been replaced. It has taken me many years, to come to grips, to stop pretending things were fine and actually discovering that they were good. I can't express what happened well enough for others to understand, but I have dealt with a kind of grief that few people know of, and even fewer people admit too. And in the end, I guess that is good enough for me.'

Sora saved the document and titled it. Looking at it for a few more moments. It was not the greatest piece, but then again, he was not a writer. He was just someone with a story to tell.


End file.
